M.J. Rose

Our moon is a true enigma that baffles even modern astronomers –

How The Moon Was Born

world-mysteries.com

“How scientists believe our moon came into existence.

Several mechanisms have been proposed for the Moon’s formation 4.527 ± 0.010 billion years ago, some 30–50 million years after the origin of the Solar System. These included the fission of the Moon from the Earth’s crust through centrifugal force, which would require too great an initial spin of the Earth, the gravitational capture of a pre-formed Moon, which would require an unfeasibly extended atmosphere of the Earth to dissipate the energy of the passing Moon, and the co-formation of the Earth and the Moon together in the primordial accretion disk, which does not explain the depletion of metallic iron in the Moon. These hypotheses also cannot account for the high angular momentum of the Earth–Moon system…”

So, what really happened? And how did the ancient Sumerians know so much about it thousands of years ago? Read the complete article here.

An idea! If You Blog:  Why not write a post about the mysteries you have encountered recently?  Send a trackback to this blog and leave a comment below so we can share the mystery!

This post was written by Emily, co-editor of the blog.

Here is a nature “mystery” for you – a simultaneously disturbing and cute creature. How is that even possible? The sheer weirdness of the Venezuelan poodle moth has caused images of it to go viral on the net…

(It looks like an alien to me! When I first saw a photo of it I was certain it was a puppet or a special effect for a space movie!)

Zoologist Arthur Anker’s picture of a Venezuela poodle moth has captured the curiosity of Internet onlookers.

By Alan Boyle

It’s been compared to a fluffy dog, a Pokemon character and a Power Rangers villain — but whatever it is, the Venezuelan poodle moth has captured the Internet like Mothra in a bad Japanese movie. Now it’s up to the experts to figure out exactly where this moth belongs on the tree of life.

The first thing to emphasize is that the poodle moth is no phony concoction like the jackalope, dogerpillar or chupacabra. Its cute, furry, scary look is totally in line with what’s expected for a neotropical ornamental moth…

For the complete article click here.

This image via Milky way scientists.

While this beautiful planetary alignment of Mercury, Venus and Saturn is really going to occur later this year, it won’t line up over the Giza pyramids. This image is presently all over the internet – but the way the alignment is presented over the pyramids is false. The geometry is wrong. Here is what it will look like.

Isn’t it interesting how 2012 seems to be the year for all sorts of interesting celestial happenings? Makes one wonder if the Mayans were on to something? I think the pyramids are a celestial calendar – built as a language to indicate certain moments in time. But for what, who knows? Maybe just because when things happen in the sky it simply just looks amazing? The ancients were clearly interested in aesthetics (just look at those pyramids and then imagine them with their bright white casing stones intact – reflecting sunlight and moonlight as far as the eye could see).

P.S. By “ancients” I don’t mean the dynastic Egyptians – my gut tells me that these structures are way older than that.